Volume 2 Chapter 3.1 (1/2)

Chapter 3.1

Translator: Einbedo

Editor: Weasalopes

「You there young lass, what song were you hummin’ just now?」

「Hmm? Oh, it’s a lumberjack song from back in my homeland.」

It was at the logging spot shared between three villages that Haruna, who was there at the request of Hiroshi, found herself surrounded by forest giants who were dying to find out more about the tune she was humming.

「That tune great I tells ya.」

「I’ve still gottem shivers runnin’ down mi spine.」

「Mi too.」

The forest giants were merrily chattering while effortlessly one-handing axes that would fall under the great category by any other race’s standard.

「Lass, may I ask ya a question?」

「Would ya mind teachin’ us that song?」

「No problemo. I’ll sing out the lyrics and you all follow along.」

Haruna gladly took up the forest giants’ request and taught them the song phrase by phrase accompanied by the correct melody. Thirty minutes later, just as the forest giants began singing the most memorable part of the song in one big unison.

「Haru…why that one?」

Mio, who had shown up for some other business, put Haruna on the spot while exuding disbelief from every inch of her body and yet managing to maintain a vacant expression.

「When you think lumberjacking you think of this song, right?」

「Well, you’re not wrong…」

She’s not wrong and Haruna doesn’t have any objections, it’s just that…

「Haru, your actions are at times more dumbfounding than sensei’s.」

「Are they?」

「Very much so.」

Mio looked on in pity as Haruna tilted her head to the side.

Haruna Toudou. The perfect lady at first sight, be it her looks, her personality, her academic achievements, her physical prowess or her home econ mastery. However, as fate would have it, nobody is perfect and Haruna’s imperfection lies in her complete musical illiteracy which causes her to have some questionable song choices at times. A real fly in the ointment.

「Anyways, what brings you here?」

「I brought saplings.」

「So you did.」

Haruna got the message after being shown the tens of saplings from Mio’s backpack. The forest giants, who had just found a good place to put down work, gather about.

「Our job’s to plant ’em but only once we get done eatin’」

As he says that he washes his hands with water from some thermos shaped magic item and reveals a massive rice ball bento. The rice balls inside were as big as a baby’s head, but in their hands they only looked somewhat on the larger side.

「There are fewer young trees than I would’ve expected but the forest doesn’t appear to be dying out as fast as you’ve made it sound. Do you get firewood from elsewhere or?」

「Our heatin’ ‘n cookin’ devices are powered by magical devices so we can provide for our daily needs with whatever thinned wood we’ve got on hand.」

「That would make sense.」

As she finished processing the giants’ explanation Haruna brought out her lunch, which seemed way too jam packed to ever be cleaned out by a lady. Ever since coming here she’d been burning through a lot more calories than she used to back in Japan so her intake proportionally increased to compensate. Having said that, her portions are still the most meager amongst her team since Makoto and Mio go even harder than her in that regard.

「I kind of feel like my self-restraint has started spiraling out of control.」

「In what way?」

「Eating this amount of food in one go isn’t normal.」

「Haru, yours is on the lighter side.」

Said Mio while comfortably going through her own bento which was twice the size of Haruna’s, casually ignoring the fact that the comparison was drawn between the average person’s food intake and not Mio’s own personal monstrous eating habits.

「For humans that’s aboot the standard amount.」

「Aye-aye.」

「Whereas we’re massive so we need a lot more.」

「Actually don’t that little rascal stuff a bit too much?」

The giants were luckily a lot more sensible than Mio. Haruna cracked a faint smile at the remark and began approaching her meal starting from the tamagoyaki. Meal time ended just as it had started – in good spirits.

「I think that should just about do it.」

After retrieving whatever usable dirt he was able to find Hiroshi wound up in the workshop which housed the updraft kiln and, as had been agreed upon, dedicated his entire being to molding flower pots.

The aforementioned updraft kiln is used not just for elven craft but the craft of all other remaining races as well. Its high quality clay serves as one of the villages main exported goods but although it can be made quickly it takes a while to properly process, so the operating ratio isn’t ideal by any means.

「Oooh.」

「Hmmm.」

Artiem and the workshop head watched in awe as Hiroshi pumped out an inconceivable amount of magical energy just to mold the flower pots. Compared to something like the dwarves the elves magical capabilities and overall potential are one of their key defining traits, yet in spite of this Hiroshi’s unprecedented ability easily edged them out, not to mention any other race as well.

Not only was his magic potent but the grace with which he wove it was unimaginable even by elf standards. To make it even more demoralizing he applied his abilities with such tactile precision on something as trivial as a flower pot without even really pouring in any conscious thought, as was evident by the light-hearted humming.

「This is absolutely breathtaking but pray tell, do you always use up this amount of magical energy in other tasks as well?」

「Well, I don’t really get to make stuff all that often but when dealin’ with raw materials I do use about this much.」

The workshop head felt a bit faint after hearing those words.

「What other types o’ magic can ya use?」

「Asides from the usual enhancement magic I can light fires, conjure up water and cast various other quality of life spells. I’ve recently been tryin’ my hand at support magic, so I guess that’s the highest level ones I can pull off.」

For a magic-based race it was only natural to think that this was a complete waste of talent. In practice however, spells, especially the high end ones, take a long time to cast and that’s not something ideal for Hiroshi who has to fight in the front lines. Since it wouldn’t be an effective use of his time learning spells Hiroshi never really was interested in putting his MP to good use.

Having said that he had recently opened up to the idea of learning it and, as such, was now practicing all sorts of support magic so as to not completely waste a valuable combat resource. In the near future, he was also planning on learning an attack spell with no cast time, that would be used for diverting the enemy’s attention and a minor healing spell to boot. However, at the moment, crafting and physical skills took priority.